The Scars of Yesterday
by LadyKatsu
Summary: Although the scars of yesterday remain, Yuki Sohma has tried to live his life normally and forget about the past. However, his family was not successful in making everyone else forget, too.
1. A Fresh Wound

Authoress here.

When writer's block leaves, I love starting new stories! In this one, I'm rather comma-happy. I apologize for any unnecessary commas that I place in this story in my hyperactive typing.

All you rabid Fruits Basket Fans: I also apologize if I seem to distort any of the characters in any way, shape, or form in my efforts to create a story that makes sense.

START CHAPTER

"Class, we have a new student today."

Yuki Sohma, the prince of his high school who came complete with an obsessed fan club, looked up from the paper he had been proofreading.

"This is Rika Kiratani. She just moved here from Osaka."

Rika kept her hazel eyes focused on the ground, and murmured a polite greeting.

"You can sit over there, Rika." The teacher pointed to a vacant seat in the back of the room, and didn't wait until the girl had taken a seat before she began lecturing the class.

Rika, who was surveying the other students, paid no attention whatsoever to the teacher's endless droning. It wasn't until she was asked a question that she couldn't answer, that she was reprimanded by her instructor and decided to pay attention. The rest of the day went rather smoothly, and once it was over, Rika was glad.

On her way out the door, Rika quite literally bumped into Kyo Sohma, who jumped as if he'd been burned. "Sorry," she apologized quickly, crouching carefully so she could pick up her books and no one could see up her skirt.

"Uh...yeah," he replied hesitantly.

When she straightened up again, she shifted her books to her left arm so she could extend a hand to the boy before her. He took it awkwardly after just staring for a second.

"Not really the best way to start off the school year. I'm Rika Kiratani, like the teacher said." Upon listening to her speak, it was apparent that she carried no trace of the Osaka accent.

"Kyo Sohma," he replied shortly, and dropped her hand.

Unperturbed by his hesitance to talk to her, she gave him a warm smile. "I'll see you tomorrow, I guess."

He gave her a brisk nod, and walked out the door.

Leaning against the wall beside the door, Rika was thinking. The name Sohma had sounded vaguely familiar for some reason that she couldn't quite place her finger on. She had moved to Osaka 7 years ago, and only recently returned to her birthplace, but was nonetheless positive that she had heard of a Sohma besides Kyo that was in this area. Since her teacher had offered no introductions, she had no way of knowing if her suspicions of another 16-year-old Sohma in this area were correct.

Back at her own home, Rika called out to signal her arrival, then rushed upstairs to her bedroom. After booting up her ancient but ever faithful computer, Rika logged on to the internet. While waiting for her computer to load her email, which took a considerable amount of time, she leaned back in her chair to think.

Seven years ago, she had lived here with her mother and father. They had moved to Osaka because her father had been offered a good job there. He had died a few months ago, so Rika and her mother had moved back to their hometown.

Looking back at the forgotten screen, she saw that her email was all from people she didn't know, and deleted all the messages except one. This one had her full name in the subject line, so she hesitantly opened it. Inside was a short message in red lettering that said, "A friendly warning to our newest student- Stay away from Prince Yuki Sohma. We're the Prince Yuki fan club, so we have first dibs. If you know what's good for you, you'll stay away."

She stared at the message, wondering briefly how they had gotten her email address. Her eyes scanned the red letters again until they fell upon the words she was searching for. Yuki Sohma? Her mother's voice caught her in the middle of her thoughts, and she stumbled down the stairs to make dinner. Her mother was devoted and tried her best, but that didn't disguise the fact that she was a horrible cook, so Rika handled all the meals.

They ate dinner silently, not wanting to start a conversation at the dinner table without her father present. He had always started off the meal by asking how everyone's days went, and they had gradually shifted to other topics off of that. The laughter had left the room since her father had died.

After the meal was done, Rika washed the dishes and walked upstairs without a word. Considering how many dishes had been broken by her mother's shaky hands since she had lost her spouse, Rika had also taken over washing dishes. A lot of the housework was now her job, since her mother was acting sort of like a dust bunny: always there, always silent, always unhelpful.

Ignoring the homework she had been assigned, Rika got ready for bed but didn't close her eyes. She stared up at the ceiling, deep in thought. Kyo and Yuki Sohma. It must have been Yuki, then, that she had met when she was a child.

Suddenly, she had a flash of a memory. She was behind a large house, running around in the garden with a group of small children.

The memory faded, and Rika forced her eyes to close. It took nearly two hours for her to fall asleep, her dreams plagued by random snippets of her childhood.

Tomorrow, she would figure out which person was Yuki. Maybe then she would remember how she knew him.

END CHAPTER

Okay, so this wasn't as impressive in length as the first chapter of other people's stories (glances at PenPusherM's 7 page chapters), but I did my best.

Read and review so I know if I should continue writing this.


	2. Commotion

Authoress here.

Is it bad when you forget you have a fic going? I honestly didn't know I still had this one until I was checking how many reviews I had. I'm so sorry! I've been an unfaithful writer!

(enucleates self) For those of you that know what _enucleate _means, you get a cookie! It's like my weird word of the day that I learned from Richard Preston's _The Cobra Event_.

START CHAPTER

Rika's alarm sounded at precisely six o'clock the next morning, and she groggily slapped her hand on the clock until she hit the snooze button. A half hour passed that way until she bothered to open her eyes and see that she was almost late for school. She had to be there by seven.

A hurried shower was in order, and she cut her legs and underarms numerous times while shaving, but only paused to shut off the water when she was done. Drying off as quickly as possible, Rika yanked open the medicine cabinet to locate some band-aids to apply to her bleeding legs.

Tossing the wrappers in the general direction of the wastebasket, Rika dashed to her bedroom, hardly remembering to close the door behind her.

She passed her mother in the hallway as she retrieved the blow dryer, and roughly ten minutes later was on her way to school. She reached her first classroom seconds before the bell rang. Panting, she located her desk and sat down, resting her head on the table. Now that the adrenaline was gone, she could feel the pain from where she had nicked herself. After she yanked up a fallen sock, the lesson began.

History, being her least favorite subject, was the hardest to pay attention to, but she knew she had to. In order to pass this particular class, she was almost required to take notes as the teacher talked in the monotone unique to history teachers.

On the other side of the room, Yuki Sohma was also trying his best to pay attention. It was more than slightly difficult. More than once, his eyes fluttered around the room, landing on Tohru and Kyo. The damn cat wasn't even looking at the teacher to give the illusion of interest.

Soon enough, Rika grew bored of learning about the Civil War in America in a greater detail than previous grades, and she too glanced around the room.

It was only a matter of time before she and Yuki met each other's eyes. Unable to look away momentarily, she was forced to gaze into his violet eyes. He had been slightly startled by her for a moment, and now did not know what to think. He had the vague impression that he knew her from somewhere. Little did he know that the feeling was mutual.

Finally managing to tear her eyes away from the handsome boy a few rows away, Rika fixated her eyes on her paper, allowing her auburn hair to hide her face on that side. She could feel his eyes on her, seeking out her face curiously.

It was not in her nature to be this shy around people, but for some reason, he was making her feel out of place and uncomfortable. The violet eyes focused on her caused her to feel cold and clammy, nervous that she might say or do something wrong. She had felt this way before when she was around a boy she liked, but this was different. _This boy is dangerous somehow_, she thought.

Not sure what had caused her to think that, she chewed the inside of her cheek until the familiar metallic taste of blood became apparent. _This is stupid. He's a teenager, just like me. He could be my neighbor. _

Yuki frowned and averted his gaze after he realized she was being too careful to show her face. There was something about her. Perhaps it was the look she gave him that made him so curious about her. Shock mixed with recognition was her initial response to meeting his eyes, and he knew that his had been the same. What was her name? He thought back to the previous day until it came to him: Rika Kiratani. Did they know each other?

No, that was impossible, he reasoned with himself. She had moved from Osaka, so they couldn't have ever met before. And yet she didn't have the same accent as others from Osaka...

He dismissed any further thoughts about Rika at that moment as his mind began to wander back to his childhood. He hadn't had friends as a child, and therefore didn't know her. And that was that.

But that day in the garden when those children had seen him transform into a rat... All of them had their memories erased. Not one had escaped with their mind intact. Yuki's eyes drifted back to Rika. Why did she seem so familiar? Had they met as children? Yuki suddenly felt a jolt. In the garden that day, there had been a little girl hiding in the bushes that hadn't been found yet in a game of hide and seek. Could she have seen him? Nonsense. Hatori had made sure that no one remembered that day. What if he had missed her? Was it possible that her hiding spot had also concealed her from Hatori?

The bell signaling the end of class startled him. Yuki couldn't help wondering. On the way out of the classroom, he waited until Rika was passing by.

"Miss Kiratani?"

Rika stopped in her tracks and turned to see who had called her name. Stepping quickly out of the way so that other students could pass by on their way to visit with friends out in the hallways, Rika waited until she and Yuki were the only two left in the classroom.

She looked rather nervous. "Did you want to talk to me about something?" After a pause, "You're Yuki Sohma, right?"

Yuki nodded. "The answer to both of those is yes. I needed to ask you something. I keep getting this feeling of déjà vu. It's like I know you somehow. I'm sorry. That must sound a bit strange."

Rika laughed. "Not at all. Actually, you seem familiar to me too."

"Did you used to live here?" Yuki asked.

"I did. About seven years ago, I moved away." Rika knew that something had been bothering her before her family moved away. Something strange that she had seen. Was it a ghost? A murder? She couldn't seem to remember.

Her thoughtfulness must have shown in her countenance, for Yuki replied, "I know I've met you before, I just can't remember when or where."

"Same here." Rika glanced away from his prefect pale face.

_Rika was running around in the garden while another little girl counted to thirty. Ducking in the bushes, she clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. The little girl who was currently It uncovered her eyes and ran around tagging people that she found before they could get to the safe zone that was a tree. _

"Miss Kiratani? Are you alright?" Yuki asked. Rika's eyes had slipped out of focus, and she slammed one hand on a nearby desk to steady herself.

_A little boy with hair that was grayish-violet rushed past, heading for the safe tree. The little girl that was It...Kaida was her name...followed. She stumbled and fell towards him as she tried to tag him. There was a puff of smoke, and..._

"Miss Kiratani?" Rika's eyes slid back into focus.

"I'm...I'm fine. Just a little dizzy, that's all." Rika shut her eyes for more than a blink to clear her head. _I think I remembered where I met you, _Rika thought to herself. _But for some reason, I get the feeling I wasn't supposed to_.

"Well..." Yuki said, now slightly uneasy. "I...suppose I'll see you later then."

"Yeah...bye." Rika watched the Prince of her high school exit the room with an uneasy feeling. Tohru Honda, a boy with two-tone hair whose name she didn't know, and a very disgruntled looking Kyo Sohma were waiting outside the room for him. For only a moment, her eyes met the black-and-white haired teens'.

He looked at her for a moment, the expression on his face not changing, and walked away with the others. A small boy bounded after him, crying out, "Waah! Wait for me, Hatsuharu!"

"Hatsuharu..." Rika repeated softly.

At that moment, the bell signaling the start of her next class rang. With a soft curse, Rika rushed out of the empty classroom. There was something about that two-tone boy, Yuki, and Kyo that was the same. She just couldn't quite put it into words. Something was a bit off about those three. They all gave her the same, uneasy, nervous feeling. It wasn't just because they were attractive. It was something a bit deeper than that.

_A puff of smoke. A rat. Screams. A man rushing across the garden and rounding up all the children except her. He ushered them inside. When they came out, they remembered nothing of what had happened. Sitting atop the pile of the little boy's clothes was a rat. The man looked down at him and said something that Rika didn't hear all of. She caught the name, however: Yuki. _

Rika had stopped dead in her tracks in the middle of the hallway. No one in any of the classes heard her body hit the floor.

END CHAPTER

Long wait, eh?

Sorry 'bout that. By the way, I'm pretty sure this might be a romance fic. That seems to be all that I can write. Waah!

Authoress leaving to blow her nose. (sniffle)


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